The Right to Die or the Will to Live?
The Terri Schiavo Case and Congress’ Most Personal Debate
When Terri Schiavo passed away in 2005, the entire world mourned her death. Her husband, Michael, had her cremated and held a private ceremony, even as her parents, Robert and Mary Schindler, held a public funeral with thousands of mourners, a symbol of the divide that now existed in this deeply broken family. It was the final chapter in what had become one of the most emotionally charged and politically volatile end-of-life debates in American history. And trust me: this one still keeps people talking.
This week's session of Crime in Congress is a little different. It’s less about crime and more about power—who has it, who wields it, and what happens when Congress gets involved in the most intimate aspects of family life.
Who Was Terri Schiavo?
Born Teresa Marie Schindler in 1963 in Lower Moreland Township, Pennsylvania, Terri was known as a shy but funny kid who adored animals, music, and her stuffed animals. As she got older, she was obsessed with John Denver songs and Danielle Steel romance novels. Eventually, she met her first crush—Michael Schiavo—at Bucks County Community College. They married in 1984 and moved to Florida in 1986, honeymooning in Disney World.
Life was simple, until it wasn’t.
By age 26, Terri had lost a significant amount of weight. Her friend Jackie Rhodes recalled that she had been trying to get pregnant but was struggling due to irregular menstrual cycles. Then, on February 25, 1990, Terri collapsed from heart failure, caused by a potassium imbalance that doctors believed was linked to an undiagnosed eating disorder. She never recovered.
Terri was left in a persistent vegetative state. She could breathe on her own but required a feeding tube. Her husband Michael was granted full guardianship, and thus began a grueling 15-year legal and emotional battle over whether she should be kept alive—or let go.
One Family, Two Views, a Nation Divided
Michael insisted that Terri had previously told him she wouldn't want to be kept alive in a persistent vegetative state. Her parents, however, believed she showed signs of improvement and wanted to continue care. What started as a private family tragedy became a very public national debate—with Congress, the President, and even the Pope weighing in.
There were malpractice lawsuits, allegations of financial motives, protests, court appeals, and at one point, a literal act: Terri’s Law passed in Florida in 2003, allowed then-Governor Jeb Bush to order her feeding tube reinserted.
Eventually, Congress passed the Palm Sunday Compromise, giving federal courts jurisdiction to review her case. But despite all the legislative whiplash, every single court ruled in favor of removing Terri’s feeding tube. She died on March 31, 2005.
A Firsthand Account: Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz Joins the Pod
To give us a real behind-the-scenes look at how Congress handled this, I was thrilled to be joined by Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (DWS), who at the time was a freshman congresswoman from Florida. Read the conversation below:
Sarah: So take us back to 2005. What was congress like during the Terri Schiavo debate?
DWS: Oh, wow. Very, very different than now. I mean, especially for me because I was a freshman, and I was literally a baby freshman. I mean, the Terri Schiavo case came up very quickly. You know, sort of we got called in on an emergency to an emergency session after Congress had adjourned for the two week spring recess, like the one we just had. And, we had a lot of members that didn't come back. But more broadly in Congress, you had more, somewhat even though Tom DeLay was the majority leader, every single thing wasn't partisan. And there there were more opportunities to, you know, to to reach out to the other side. But, you know, not on a case like this, this case was really emblematic more of the kinds of things that are going on today...The case really drew partisan political battle lines...I'll just give you an example...I had a bill. I was a I'm a freshman in the minority. I'm the lowest form of human life. You know, and the chances of my moving anything were slim. But, you know, I was able to go to Tom DeLay and ask him to sponsor my first bill that I passed. That created the Jewish Jewish American Heritage Month in every May. And he agreed. I mean, even though he was the majority leader, he agreed to cosponsor it. We actually got it to the floor. We passed it. And so there was just more opportunity to passed an amendment in that time period just by going to Republican members... I was able to pass an amendment over the objections of the majority and and the the the floor manager of the bill on the Republican side because parents of young kids knew that mercury was harmful. Right. That would be nearly impossible today.
Sarah: Yeah, no. That is that's wild what two decades will do.
DWS: I mean, the amendment wouldn't even be made in order today, so I wouldn't even have had an opportunity to plead my case. So the fact that I even was able to was kind of a miracle.
Sarah: Wow. No. That's great level setting. I think the I think the listeners would really appreciate kind of setting the scene for us. Now you said in the press conference, a clip which aired on C SPAN in March 2005, that federal involvement in this case was, quote, "politicizing a family tragedy tragedy." Do you still feel that way today?
DWS: Oh my gosh. Absolutely. And then it was politicizing a family tragedy all the way back to the February in the Florida legislature when the Republicans in the Florida legislature gave Jeb Bush in the law the authority to specifically insert, reinsert Terri Schiavo's feeding tube over a court decision that had said that that the her husband should be able to ask that it be removed. And so you fast forward till basically the end of the case and the family's legal, appeals process was basically exhausted. And they got the United States Congress and the president of The United States involved to try to force the the the the decision, a medical decision, a medical and legal decision that rested with her husband, to get the Congress to determine that, no, she did not have a traumatic brain injury or that that there was there was somehow, recognition and cognition there when there had been medically determined that there wasn't. And, you had Bill Frist who was this US Senator who was a doctor during that period of time diagnosing Terri Schiavo from the Senate floor. I mean having never seen her in person, wildly inappropriate things for the Congress. I mean, the best way I can describe it, my feeling about it at the time, is that this would just be the beginning of a completely slick steep slippery slope. Who would we say no to if we if we got involved in the Schiavo case? Is that what Congress was gonna be doing going forward? We would have a whole new category of legislation. Just private family disputes are not something that's supposed to be settled in the Congress because the Congress is a political body, and the courts are objective. And we have a separation of powers for a reason. And, so, yeah, I still feel very strongly about that. And it was politicized, because they there was a memo that came out actually, during the aftermath of the debate, because, US senator from Florida, Bill Nelson, was gonna be up for reelection, I think, that cycle. And the Republican party circulated a memo that was leaked that said, well, this is gonna be a great political issue. It's gonna be really tough for Bill Nelson. So it was obvious that this was that that this was about politics.
Sarah: Wow. Fascinating. Yeah. So during this time, what was the outreach like from your constituents? What were they telling you?
DWS: Let let me let me just another example.
Sarah: Yeah.
DWS: I had been in Congress for ten weeks at that point. We got called back into session from the spring recess. This bill was debated on a Sunday, on a Sunday night. And one of the key things that I tried to bring out was that when George W. Bush was governor of Texas, he signed a bill into law that allowed for the withdrawal of feeding tubes and life support just like what was happening in the Schiavo case at that moment. And in fact, an infant, just before we were debating that bill, had a hospital withdraw their life support over the objections of the parents because the the the infant was in a persistent vegetative state and there was deemed no hope for survival, but was on life support. And, you know, now you had then-President Bush flying across the country to sign this bill into law at one in the morning. Did his conviction completely change? It seemed much more like it was politics.
Sarah: When you guys were called in, that was I think I believe it was Palm Sunday. Yeah. It was. So how did you feel the day that bill passed?
DWS: It was demoralizing. It was deflating. We're the greatest democratic, small d, democratic institution in the world, and we were clearly violating our own constitution, and we were politicizing a very personal matter. It was at the behest of the parents of Terri Schiavo, you know, with the husband on the other side. We were there on Sunday, but all of this unfolded from Friday to Sunday. I mean, over over two days. Right. So there was no time to sort of vet this with the public. Not that it would have mattered, but, you know, you went in, and it was just a snap decision. There were court rulings that brought the case to the point where her feeding tube was gonna be withdrawn again finally. So they just raced to act. And between the mixture of politics and religious fervor, frankly, and trying to satisfy an evangelical Christian base, you know, and my family had just recently, which I shared on the House floor, my own family had just recently been through the need to withdraw my husband's great aunt's feeding tube as well. And, you know, it was such a devastating decision, but it was a personal one. And I could we we could not have imagined if there was a family dispute over that decision that anyone would have reached out to their member of Congress to help resolve it. So it was deflating.
Sarah: Yeah. Absolutely. Now we kinda talked about a little bit earlier how back in 2005, you were able to kinda reach across the aisle. Did you have any unlikely allies in this fight to kinda take this bill down?
DWS: Yeah. You know what was amazing? So a member of Congress from Florida then, her name was Ginny Brown Waite. She and I served in the state legislature together. I was in the state house when she was in the state senate. And and she reached out to me clandestinely, actually, and didn't even want her staff to know that she was reaching out to me because she had she had just been elected to Congress the term before and was familiar with the case, and she was from the Tampa Bay area. So she asked me to get her my materials and the information and the backup to help her make the decision. I'm getting chills thinking about this. This was the most amazing thing. Now, you know, think about the dynamic in Congress. Most of the time, Republicans sit on one side of the chamber. Democrats sit on the other, especially during heated debate. Ginny Brown Waite came across the chamber when we convened on Sunday and sat next to me in on the House floor on the Democratic side, and she took time in opposition on the Democratic side of the aisle and spoke against the bill. And voted against the bill. Yeah. That was amazing courage. She wasn't in, you know, a super safe seat, from my recollection, but it didn't matter. You know, for her, that was completely on principle, and I just wish we had more of that now. You know?
Sarah: It was, it's hard to imagine that happening now. Right. Yeah. So kind of in terms of bringing together your caucus, the Tampa Bay Times quoted that this case did kinda bring your larger caucus together. Do you agree with that?
DWS: Well, I it did afterwards. I mean, we had a lot of members were scattered across the globe on congressional trips or family vacations because it was Passover and Easter time. Yeah. It just adjourned on Friday, and this we were called back in on Sunday. So we didn't have all of our members come back. You know, I wanna say about a hundred democratic members came back, something like that. So and it was it was a very fraught issue. I don't even think the majority of Democrats voted against the bill. I can't recall, but I'm pretty sure it was still a majority of Democrats that voted yes. But you should check that to make sure; it was now twenty years ago. We debated this bill for three hours on Sunday night from about 09:30 in the evening til around midnight. And so, I mean, Palm Sunday, at, at, you know, late at night. Yeah. I mean, not even late at night, but, you know, sort of prime time. People were riveted to C SPAN. There was a huge uptick in people watching what was going on in Congress because it was such an unusual situation, and the news was covering it. So a lot of the public knew what was going on and what happened and what the result was in from Congress going through this process and, you know, and and the coverage of it all weekend. So the next morning, there were polls that came out that showed that the overwhelming majority of Americans opposed Congress intervening in personal private family matters and specifically opposed Congress getting involved in whether or not, you know, her feeding tube should be reinserted. And the compromise actually the quote, unquote, Palm Sunday compromise, what it really boiled down to was that I think they eventually had enough of their members who found it objectionable for Congress to directly require the the feeding tube be reinserted. And so what they did was that they ordered a federal court, totally unconstitutional, but ordered a federal court to consider the case. I guess, just, you know, one more time. And, essentially, from my recollection, when that happened, the judge just gaveled in and said, you know, not appropriate and didn't, you know, didn't go through a full hearing. But the overwhelming sentiment afterwards and over that next couple of weeks, because it was debated, you know, for the next few weeks in the in the public sphere, was that the Republicans and President Bush really got it wrong, misjudged totally how families across America would have felt. So many families go through that gut wrenching decision when someone is on life support. It's the most heartbreaking, excruciating decision that anyone can make. And it's just no place for Congress, or the executive branch. It really, hopefully, never even makes it in your family to a court, You know? But there has to be some objectivity, and that's how Americans clearly felt about it. So that brought our caucus together as far as, you know, our values and our principles as Democrats, that, you know, we needed to make sure that we separate religious decisions and principles from from our our small d democratic ones, and we certainly don't violate our constitution, because of a political, you know, over an opportunity politicize a personal family tragedy.
Sarah: Yeah. Absolutely. So I think I know the answer to this, but I'm gonna ask it anyways. Was justice served for Terri Schiavo?
DWS: I don't see how you could say that over the incredibly lengthy period of time, once Michael Schiavo, her then husband decided that, you know, it was time to to withdraw her life support, that that justice was served. Because, I mean, she was used as a political pawn and, you know, sort of removed from this devastating family tragedy. And so I think, I suppose the end result, because she was allowed to, you know, to peacefully go to her resting place, which was important, with some measure of justice. But, you know, the family being, the family's tragedy being brought so publicly and her her personal horrific health care situation being politicized like that, diminished the justice that she that she deserved.
Sarah: I wanna give you a chance, to give any other takeaways, anything else you wanna say, make sure that listeners hear.
DWS: One of the things that this case illuminated for so many is the importance of having a living will and an advanced directive, as well as a health care surrogate. Because Terri was only, I think, 27 years old when she had the health care tragedy that that caused her to be in a persistent vegetative state and not had prior health health issues. So, you know, at the time, it really underscored for people how important it is to have those conversations very specifically with your family. You know, use a living will, have a health care surrogate, and make sure that if, God forbid, you know, someone tries to politicize your family tragedy or even on a much smaller level, you avoid the lack of clarity about what you would have wanted. That's an important lesson for people to come away from, so hopefully, in Terri's name, we were able to, through the spotlight on this issue, help a lot of people avoid that kind of conflict when now when, God forbid, the worst happens in in your in your family.
Sarah: Thank you for that. And thank you again for coming on the podcast. I think you've brought a lot to this episode, and I'm really excited for our listeners to hear it.
DWS: Thank you so much. Great to be with you.
Final Thoughts
This case wasn’t just about a feeding tube. It was about the intersection of family, politics, law, and ethics. Terri Schiavo’s story forced the nation to ask: who gets to decide when life should end?
Whether you believe Michael was honoring his wife's wishes or Terri’s parents were fighting for her life, one thing is clear: this case should have remained in the family and the courts—not in the halls of Congress.
🕊 Rest in peace, Terri.
Sources
https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A64459-2005Mar24_3.html
https://terrischiavo.org/story/
https://www.tampabay.com/archive/2005/03/26/she-s-the-other-woman-in-michael-schiavo-s-heart/
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC521030/
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